Faith Alone

Someday I’ll just wait back there
and see who panics and how quickly somebody jumps up to fill the
pulpit. I’m better. I’ve been asked really for the
last couple of weeks a number of times regarding our Reformation
tour what my favorite thing to see was. What was my favorite thing to
see firsthand? And there are some strong candidates,
as I look back on those few weeks in Europe. I certainly enjoyed
the castle in Edinburgh, positioned at the top of a high hill. It
is impossible to miss. Portions of the castle date back
to the 12th century. It’s really, truly a fantastic
sight, but not my favorite. If you saw the movie, The Essential
Church, you may remember this site. It’s the Covenanter’s Memorial. I was particularly moved to see
this. It’s just a round circle of stones
commemorating the site of the town gallows where Christians
were martyred by hanging. I enjoyed seeing John Knox’s
parking place If you’re not familiar with that story, it’s the famous
reformers place of burial next to the church in which he preached,
which has been paved over for use as a parking lot. All that
marks this spot is a small stone marker with parking place number
23 painted above it. I also enjoyed seeing the birthplace
of golf, St. Andrews in Scotland, a striking,
beautiful plot of grass next to the North Sea. And for me,
a pleasant reminder of giving thanks for all of those Sunday
afternoon naps watching golf. Then in London, There are these
iconic red double-decker buses, those strange little black taxis. Great to see firsthand, but not
my favorite. Big Ben was, for me, a special
sight, as was Westminster Abbey. Still not my favorite. Oxford
and Cambridge. We got to walk both towns and
saw many sites. I saw Spurgeon’s Church, well,
allegedly. It’s really the site on which
Spurgeon’s Church once stood because since he preached there
in the 1800s, the church has been destroyed and rebuilt twice. So it’s really not Spurgeon’s
Church and not my favorite. Surprisingly, I did enjoy seeing
the graves of three of my heroes of the faith. It caught me off
guard. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing
grave sites, but Isaac Watts, John Bunyan, John Owen, those
are three of my heroes of the faith, and it was special. I got to tour Churchill’s War
Room, which was a fantastic experience, where he prosecuted World War
II. Not my favorite. The Swiss Alps,
which I had longed to see. That was our add-on little junket. The Jungfrau Mountains of Grindelwald,
Wengen, Lauterbrunnen. Fantastic sight. Not my favorite. None of those, really as great
as they were individually, were my favorite thing to see. My
favorite site really could be described as 35 pavers. I’ll explain in a moment. Before
I tell you more about that, I need to remind you of our study this
morning. We’re studying the solas of the
Reformation. Sola scriptura, scripture alone.
Solus Christus, Christ alone. Sola gratia, grace alone. Today,
sola fide, faith alone. The one means of possessing Christ’s
righteousness. That we are justified before
a holy God by faith. Next Lord’s Day, Lord willing,
soli deo gloria, to God’s glory alone. We find ourselves now
on the fourth of the five solas, sola fide, faith alone, and thus
far we have reviewed sola scriptura, the one source of divine revelation,
which opens the door really to the other four solas. We considered
solus Christus, Christ alone, the one source of redemption
and forgiveness of sin, which restored the Savior to his rightful
place as the only source of salvation. And last Lord’s Day, we focused
on sola gratia, grace alone, the one means of spiritual restoration. These and the final sola, soli
deo gloria, the glory of God alone, denote the observable
principles that were at work in the hearts and lives of the
Reformers. purely by God’s good providence,
which allows for no accident, the reformers, one by one, began
to look into God’s word, and as they did, they began to behold
truth which had been hidden for centuries. The Roman Catholic
Church had scandalously held the word of God from her people
bound up in Jerome’s Latin translation, the Vulgate. And that allowed
for many and varied mischaracterizations of Bible doctrine, even outright
heresies. And nowhere were these errors
more grievously present than what had become the gospel. The so-called good news had degenerated
into a complicated system of works which promised only the
possibility of salvation. And that led the church’s followers
to a never-ending pursuit of salvation by good works. The
reformers soon recognized the stark difference between what
Rome was teaching on the one hand and what the pure gospel
of salvation that was articulated in scripture. One of the earliest
reformers to address this alarming difference was a young pastor
in Cambridge. For now, we’ll call him the pastor
of Worcester. We might pronounce it Worcester,
but as the English tend to do, they pronounce this word dramatically
differently than we might. They just pronounce it Worcester. And that’s precisely why I don’t
even try to pronounce the salty liquid that we sprinkle on our
steak. Well, this man, this pastor from
Worcester, became a Catholic priest at age 30. And he started
out as a good Catholic priest, upholding all of the church’s
teachings and speaking with disdain against even the rumblings of
the reformers. especially the idea of putting
the Bible into people’s hands. He was a very colorful character.
And in Cambridge, Cambridge was a very lively place. He frequented
a place called the White Horse Inn, where pastors and scholars
would gather to discuss theology. And this pastor did so with no
other than the likes of William Tyndale. Another colleague of
his, Thomas Bilney, had become convinced of some errors in the
Catholic Church and the need of reform. The scripture to him was the
only source of truth, and a sinner could never add to Christ’s works
with his own. One day, he went to the Worcester
church to the pastor for confession. Instead of a typical brief confession
before the priest, it is said that on his knees, Bill Nee poured
out his heart to this pastor for hours about his convictions. Instead of confessing his sin
against the Catholic Church, he confessed his own sins against
God in all of his years of teaching Rome’s falsehoods. The pastor
from Worcester responded with repentance and bitter tears of
his own. Bilney began to greatly influence
him in biblical doctrine. And soon the pastor from Worcester
joined Bilney in preaching against the church’s errors, idolatry,
and other common abuses. Bilney eventually drew the attention
of the Catholic hierarchy. He was arrested. imprisoned for
more than a year, and ultimately he was burned at the stake. But
as for the pastor from Worcester, even the treatment of his friend,
Bilney, did not dampen his enthusiasm for biblical truth. Instead,
it seemed to only strengthen his resolve. I was intrigued
by this reformer’s story, and I went looking to see if I could
find any of his sermons. Unfortunately, Though he must
have preached more than 1,000 sermons in his 40 years of ministry,
we know of only 41 that survive. But what is there is red hot,
still smoking. Listen to these less than subtle
condemnations of the Catholic Church’s perspective on the gospel. These are from his sermons, most
of which were preached in 1552. from sermon number 36. All the
papists, that is the adherence to the Pope and his teachings,
all the papists think themselves to be saved by the law. And I
myself have been of that dangerous, perilous, and damnable opinion. Till I was 30 years of age, so
long I walked in darkness in the shadow of death, He that
departs out of world, out of this world in that opinion, he
shall never come to heaven. We may not be justified by our
doings. From sermon number 25, these
merit mongers have so many good works that they might be able
to sell them for money. And so to bring other men to
heaven by buying of their good works, which no doubt is the
greatest contempt of the passion of Christ that can be devised. From sermon number 35, the papists
make Christ to be but half a savior. For they think that they with
their good works must help him to save them half. So they blaspheme
him. and take away his dignity. Well,
I hope that you can hear that with rhetoric like that, it was
only going to get this pastor from Worcester in hot water with
the powerful Roman Catholic Church, and it eventually did. But what
this now middle-aged pastor was articulating and really seeking
to protect and restore was the very gospel itself. Sola Fide,
faith alone in Christ alone for salvation. We saw that the first
three solas, even if they were not formally articulated during
the Reformation, were thoroughly biblical. And they were observable
in the hearts and lives of the Reformers. So it is with Sola
Fide. Listen to how this pastor from
Worcester articulated the biblical teaching of the gospel. All the
merits of Christ are ours. His fulfilling of the law is
ours. And so we are justified before
God and finally attain to everlasting life They that be in Christ are
partakers of all his merits and benefits, of everlasting life
and felicity, that is, happiness. Perhaps as you can even hear
in his words, the doctrine that he is articulating is the biblical
doctrine of justification by faith. Salvation by faith, not
works, or even faith plus works, as the Catholic Church was teaching,
Adding works to faith is what the Catholic Church at the time
colloquially called patching. Shocking. Patching was adding
what they believed to be lacking in Christ’s work. The reformers
rejected this idea of patching altogether and began to preach
faith alone in Christ alone. Martin Luther discovered this
doctrine while translating Romans 117, which reads, in it, that
is in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith
to faith, as it is written, but the righteous man shall live
by faith. That statement greatly troubled
Luther, who was endeavoring to earn his righteousness piecemeal
through a lifetime of good works. that what Luther rightly understood
this verse to be saying was that righteousness was only to be
obtained by faith, not by works. That’s why he placed this doctrine
in the highest place. He said that sola fide, the doctrine
of justification by faith, was the chief article with which
and by which the church stands and without which it falls. We’ll look this morning into
God’s word to see this truth. Would God’s people please turn
to Romans chapter three. Romans chapter three, where Paul
will provide for us five compelling testimonies of sola fide, faith
alone, in Christ alone. Romans chapter three, let’s begin
at verse 21. But now, apart from the law,
the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed
by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God,
through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe. For
there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short
of the glory of God, being justified as a gift of His grace. through
the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly
as a propitiation in his blood through faith. You’ll no doubt
notice that our passage begins with an adversative, but, and
that’s because Paul is inserting a contrast here in verse 21 with
a point that he has made over the several preceding chapters. Very quickly this morning, and
very briefly, given our purpose this morning, would you flip
back two chapters to Romans 1, verse 18? And there, Paul issues an indictment,
really, against the whole heathen world. Look at verse 18, if you
would. For the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who
suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about
God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them.
They know there’s a God, but they live as if God did not exist. And because of that, they live
under the just wrath of God. But that’s the heathen world.
The godless world of the Gentiles. What about the Jewish person?
Paul moves to address them in chapter two. Would you please
turn there? Chapter two, verse one, where
Paul indicts the Jewish nation, therefore, you are without excuse,
every man of you who passes judgment, for in that you judge another,
you condemn yourself, for you who judge practice the same things. And we know that the judgment
of God falls rightly upon those who practice such things. So
then the Jewish man is no better off spiritually standing than
the heathen. Both stand under the judgment
of God. Would you just note Paul’s conclusion
there in verse nine? There will be tribulation and
distress for every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first
and also of the Greek, but glory, honor, and peace to every man
who does good, to the Jew and also of the Greek, for there
is no partiality with God. For all who have sinned without
the law will perish without the law, and all who have sinned
under the law will be judged by the law. All people, whether
Gentile or Jew, stand justly condemned before the Lord, whether
Gentiles without the law or the Jewish man under the law. Both
stand condemned, as Paul concludes in chapter three, verse nine,
both Jews and Greeks are all under sin. How then can a sinner
be saved? If Paul were to stop here, humanity
would forever be left in hopeless despair. But Paul doesn’t stop
there. All are under sin, and under
the just condemnation of God, but now, verse 21. That’s how Paul starts this lengthy
and glorious sentence of hope in verse 21. Would you just glance
there again? Chapter three, verse 21, but
now, there is unspeakable hope in those two little words. Paul
has already made clear that by the works of the law, no flesh
will be justified, made fit to stand in God’s holy presence.
Mankind, both Gentile and Jew, have made a spiritual train wreck
of their lives. Both are dreadfully under God’s
judgment, but now. And Paul proceeds to declare
here justification by faith alone. What Paul gives here are five
compelling testimonies to sola fide, faith alone. Let’s look
at each one. First of all, the first compelling
testimony to sola fide is the divine provision for our salvation. Go again to verse 21, but now
apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being
witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness
of God. I want you to note that verses
21 all the way down through 26 is one very lengthy, very dynamic
sentence. There is a mountain of crucial
detail in these verses, but the simple sentence The simple sentence
of this very lengthy sentence is contained right there in verse
21. But now, the righteousness of God has been manifested. Righteousness
has been a major theme already in this epistle, and it will
continue to be a major theme throughout the letter. The word
in all their various forms is used more than 60 times in the
book of Romans. Would you flip back again to
chapter one and this time to verse seven, go to verse 16. We’ll take a running start at
it where Paul says, for I am not ashamed of the gospel for
it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to
the Jew first and also to the Greek for in it, that is in the
gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to
faith. This is Luther’s verse. But mankind
is devoid of righteousness. Look down, if you would, at verse
18. For the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who
suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Scroll down to verse 29. where
Paul says that they are filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness,
greed, evil, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, and the
rest. Scroll down now even further
to chapter three, verse 10, where Paul just simply says, there
is none righteous. You can’t find a righteous person. So when Paul announces here in
chapter three, verse 21, but now the righteousness of God
has been manifested, that’s good news. That is the good news. Jesus Christ has come in God’s
righteousness. As Paul would say in Galatians
4.4, in the fullness of time, God sent forth his son. What
Paul begins to proclaim here in chapter 321 is the gospel,
the pure, unadulterated gospel in all its fullness and glory.
No more gloom. The light has dawned, to use
Isaiah’s imagery. The righteousness of God has
been manifested. This is the one thing that doomed
humanity most needed. The righteousness of God. The
righteousness of which Paul speaks here is God’s moral perfection. It’s his standard. It’s the very
basis of his judgment. Moral uprightness, virtuousness,
purity, conformity to God’s standard is a must. The problem is mankind’s
attempt to measure up to God’s standard, God’s righteousness,
is dreadfully inadequate. It’s precisely this righteousness,
God’s moral standard that we lack. We are anything but righteous
according to God. If we will be righteous, God
must supply it. And here in verse 21, this is
Paul’s opening declaration that God has made provision for our
salvation by giving us what we most lacked. the righteousness
of God. And Paul describes this righteousness
in unmistakable terms. First of all, he says that this
righteousness is apart from the law. The Jewish people knew what
God’s standard was. It was God’s law. And they knew
that they must attain to that divine standard if they were
to be saved. But they also learned from hundreds
of years of their own human effort that salvation by law-keeping
was an impossible task. Definitively, this is not the
standard to which we can work, to which we can one day attain.
The righteousness, this righteousness cannot be achieved by law-keeping,
even the law of God. This righteousness is the standard
because God is the standard. This is His righteousness. And
He meets His standard by providing His perfect sacrifice for sinners
in His own Son. The second way that Paul characterizes
God’s righteousness here is that it was witnessed by the law and
the prophets. The Jewish people had portioned
the scriptures out into two general categories, the law and the prophets.
Both testified of God’s righteousness. The law provided God’s standard. The prophets spoke of a coming
righteous Messiah, God’s provision of such righteousness. May I
tell you what our pastor from Worcester said about the righteousness
of God? He said, to say or believe that
we should be saved by the law, this is a great dishonoring of
Christ’s passion. For the law serves to no other
purpose. It brings us to the knowledge
of our sins and so to Christ. For when we become through the
law to the knowledge of our sins, when we perceive our filthiness,
then we are ready to come to Christ and to fetch remission
of our sins at his hands. So Paul begins here. with God’s
provision for our salvation, the righteousness of God, but
how do we lay hold of this righteousness? This is Paul’s second compelling
testimony to sola fide, and we find it in verse 22. Verse 22, where he speaks of
the righteousness of God, even through faith in Jesus Christ
for all those who believe. This is the straightforward means
of our salvation, the second testimony. Not only the divine
provision for our salvation, but the straightforward means
of our salvation. Paul has already declared that
this righteousness of God is apart from the law. It’s not
achievable by human effort. And he has hinted that the prophet
spoke of the manifestation of God’s righteousness ostensibly
through a coming Messiah. Here in verse 22, Paul directly
states how it is that we can lay hold of this righteousness.
It’s only through faith in Jesus Christ. God has indeed broken
into the course of history, fulfilling his plan of redemption with great
news, as Paul described in 2 Corinthians 5 21. He, that is God the Father,
made him, that is Jesus Christ, who knew no sin, to be sin on
our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
But it’s not enough just to hear about this revelation of God’s
righteousness in Christ. If all we ever do is hear about
it, admire it, consider it, think about the news that God has provided,
if that’s all we ever do, it remains worthless. This news
must be received by faith. God’s righteousness as revealed
in Jesus Christ is received by faith that is appropriated by
faith, a faith that rests solely on the Lord Jesus himself and
his work of redemption on the cross for us. This is the consistent
testimony of scripture. We might even think of John’s
gospel as the gospel of belief. Listen to this, John 1 12. As
many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children
of God, even to those who believe in His name. John 3.16, which
we cited several weeks ago, for God so loved the world that He
gave His only begotten Son, Solus Christus, that whoever believes
in His name, Sola Fide, shall not perish but have eternal life.
John 8.24, unless you believe that I am He, you will die in
your sins. John 20, 31, these signs I have
written to you so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ,
the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
Sola Fide is obviously also a detail that Paul preached, Galatians
2, 16. A man is not justified by the works of the law, but
through faith in Jesus Christ. Since by the works of the law
shall no flesh be justified, Paul believed in sola fide, justification
by faith. And our pastor from Wusta, he
also came to grasp and to preach this truth. Listen to this. He
said, let us study to believe in Christ. Let us put all our
hope and trust and confidence only in him. Let us patch him
with nothing. Our merits are not able to deserve
everlasting life. It is too precious a thing to
be merited by man. So this righteousness is availed
through faith in Jesus Christ alone. But would you notice one
more astounding thing here? This promise, as Paul concludes,
is for all those who believe, for there is no distinction.
This benevolent promise of God for what mankind needs most is
available to any and all who need it. To the Jewish people,
but not just the Jewish people, it is for all. There is no distinction
from individuals from whatever camp it is they belong. If they place their faith in
Jesus Christ, they may be saved. And just as there is no distinction
between God’s judgment of both Gentiles and Jews as sinful and
as need of saving grace, so it is with faith. And this is Paul’s
third compelling testimony of sola fide. We find it in verse
23. In verses 21 and 22, we saw the
divine provision for our salvation. At the end of verse 22, we saw
the straightforward means of our salvation. And here we see
the universal need of our salvation in verse 23, for all have sinned
and fall short of the glory of God. Now the phrase at the end
of verse 22 functions as kind of a link pin between the two
statements. It goes as much with the statement
in verse 22 as it does with the statement in verse 23. There
is no distinction with regard to those who come to faith in
Christ, and there’s no distinction with regard to God’s wrath upon
sinners. God does not grate on a curve.
God is not capricious. God does not favor one over another. God does not provide one way
of salvation for some and another for others. And it’s not as if
some people are better than others who don’t need salvation. The
need of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ is universal. All
have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. This is just
exactly what Paul proved in the opening chapters of this letter.
The Gentiles are sinners in need of salvation. And so are the
Jews. There is no distinction. All
have sinned. Now, again and again in our study
of the Solas, we have come across this sobering truth that as a
result of the fall of Adam and Eve, we find ourselves in a desperate
condition. As I’ve said probably a thousand
times, we are inherently sinful, temporally vexed, physically
dying, and spiritually dead. That’s our woeful condition as
humans and as sinners. Obviously, we fall short of the
glory of God. We don’t measure up to God’s
standard of righteousness. We have no glory of our own to
shine forth, but we don’t even reflect the glory of God. God
is not seen in us as he ought to be seen. After all, we were
created in God’s image. And hence the need, as Paul began
in verse 21, of God’s righteousness. You know what? Our pastor from
Lusta spoke to this truth as well. Consider the works of the
law, he said, how they ought to be done. The law itself is
holy and good, but we are not able to keep it. And therefore,
we must seek our righteousness not in the law, but in Christ.
And you can almost hear someone say, yes, I know all of this. God’s righteousness has been
fully displayed. The one thing that people need
most given to us by God And it’s apart from an attempt to live
according to God’s law that it was declared for centuries by
the writers of the Old Testament. This righteousness is only appropriated
by faith. It’s widely available to all
who believe. But how exactly does that work? How can we even take an unrighteous
sinner like me and impart this righteousness? And if we are even able to answer
that question why, or rather how, we could quickly move to
the question why. Why would God do this? What would
motivate God to such a magnanimous act? And isn’t there something
that I can do in return? Something I can do to show God
that I’m worthy of this kindness? Isn’t there something I can do
to contribute to this great cause of saving my soul? This is Paul’s
focus in verse 24, would you please glance down at point four,
the fourth compelling testimony. Not only the divine provision
for our salvation, the straightforward means of our salvation, the universal
need of our salvation, but fourthly, the gracious declaration of our
salvation. All have sinned and fall short
of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by his grace. Paul tells us here the way, the
only way for a sinner to come to rest in God’s righteousness,
he or she must, no other way around it, he or she must be
justified. Now, as important a truth as
it is, it is nothing short of alarming how few Christians really
understand what justification is. Simply stated, justification
is the reason that we would offer as to why we should come into
God’s holy presence. Sadly, many believe that their
works would commend them to God. I’ve been a good person, they
say. Our works can never save us. Please know that our pastor from
Worcester preached this as well. We must do good works and God
requires them of us, but yet we may not put our trust in them
or think to get to heaven with the same. For our works are wicked
and evil and the best of them be imperfect. We must not be
justified through our good works, but through the passion of Christ,
and so to live by free justification and righteousness in Christ Jesus. You see, what this pastor had
learned from scripture was that justification, which is by faith
alone, is a legal declaration by God that we stand in the righteousness
of Christ, not in our own efforts, no matter how good or noble. If you will, it is a divine not
guilty verdict which God pronounces. Justification by faith is a declaration
by God in which God imputes to us Christ’s righteousness. It’s not the same thing as sanctification. The Roman Catholic Church blended
the two. so that it was a declaration
that really put the believers on a path, a never-ending path
of justification and sanctification. But justification, as the Bible
teaches it, is a declaration that changes our standing before
God instantaneously, not over the course of a lifetime. Christ’s
righteousness is credited to the account of those who place
their faith in him. We are not immediately made righteous. We are reckoned, considered,
declared to be such by God. What God sees now in the individual
is the righteousness of Christ. As Paul describes in Philippians
chapter three, he had abandoned the idea of working his way to
heaven. His only desire was that he may
be found in him that is in Christ, not having a righteousness of
my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith
in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis
of faith. Please note, There’s nothing,
nothing that we can ever do to earn or repay this marvelous
gift of justification by faith. As Paul details it here for us,
we are justified as a gift by his grace. No person ever deserves
such a magnificent gift from God. No one could ever do anything
to earn it or merit it. It is a gift, one purely given
by God’s grace. It is all of God’s undeserved
favor. But someone may yet ask, how
is such an incredible gift made possible? And this is Paul’s
final compelling testimony to sola fide found in verses 24
and 25. The fifth compelling testimony
to sola fide not only the divine provision for our salvation,
the straightforward means of our salvation, the universal
need of our salvation, the glorious declaration of our salvation,
but fifth, the wonderful redeemer of our salvation. Would you look
again at the end of verse 24 that we are justified as a gift
by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom
God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. God did not, indeed He could
not, just ignore our sin. That wouldn’t be just. And in
his justice system, it was so perfect that no other than his
own righteous son could come and atone for the sins of God’s
people. Paul says it this way, that this
justification was through the redemption which is in Christ
Jesus. This provides the reason why
God was able to grant such a gift. Our sins were paid for in full
by Jesus Christ. Well, by now, it won’t surprise
you that our pastor from Worcester also proclaimed this truth. Just listen. Now that which we
lacked, that same hath God fulfilled and supplied in that he hath
sent his son to supply that which man’s works could not do. And
with his fulfilling of the law and painful death, he merited
that as many as believe in him, though they had done all the
sins of the world, yet they shall not be damned. but are righteous
before the face of God, believing in Christ so that remission of
sins and everlasting life may be sought nowhere else but in
Christ. He speaks there to the price
of our redemption, which Paul addresses here in verse 25, that
in Christ Jesus, God displayed him publicly as a propitiation
in his blood. This is why Paul was able to
gift us Christ’s righteousness by justification. Christ redeemed
us with his blood, his painful sacrifice in his death on the
cross. As Paul said to the Corinthians,
you have been bought with a price. And as Peter declares, this payment
was not made with perishable things like silver or gold, but
with precious blood as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the
blood of Christ. Jesus Christ is the wonderful
redeemer of our salvation. Now, I still owe you a few things.
I promised you the identity of this pastor, and I promised to
tell you of my favorite site on the Reformation tour. You
see, this pastor from Worcester is a man named Hugh Latimer. Hugh Latimer would become one
of the early reformers in England, a man of great courage. It is
recorded that in addition to his own church in Worcester,
he would often preach in St. Edward’s Church in Cambridge. In God’s remarkable goodness, I had the privilege not only
to go inside of this church, but even to ascend into the ancient
and rickety wooden pulpit. And when I did so, I was struck
with an overwhelming sense of my unworthiness to be there. You see, Hugh Latimer paid a
tremendous price for his faithfulness to the solas of the Reformation.
He paid with his life. After years of harassment and
imprisonment, He was at long last condemned to die by bloody
Queen Mary. And at Oxford in 1555, Hugh Latimer,
nearing 70 years old, was burned at the stake. He was martyred
along with his friend, Nicholas Ridley. John Fox in his Fox’s
Book of Martyrs quotes Latimer as faithfully calling out to
Ridley, As the fire was set to the sticks piled around him,
he said, play the man, Master Ridley. We shall this day light
such a candle by God’s grace in England, as I trust shall
never be put out. And so as for those 35 pavers, My favorite spot on the Reformation
tour. There is there on the busy street
in Oxford a small cross made of pavers in the road to mark
the actual site where these faithful men of God were dispatched from
this world and into the next. You see, sola fide, they believed,
faith alone justification by faith alone in Christ alone,
the defense of this doctrine was worth dying. One of my favorite old hymns
says it so simply. Rock of Ages, not the labors
of my hands can fulfill the law’s demands. Could my zeal, no respite,
no, could my tears forever flow. All for sin could not atone.
Thou must save, and Thou alone. Would you humble yourself before
our Lord?